Hello! Thanks for visiting my blog, I am glad you are here. For the most part, I use this to comment (and sometimes ramble...) about the many things I love or perhaps am fascinated with this week. This can include quite an assortment of topics, including my propensity for reading novels at all hours of the day, writing, art, and travel, as I do have a serious case of Wanderlust.

"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." ~St. Augustine

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

So guys, the time of of the unyielding flow of Christmas songs is upon us. I like it in intervals, but when it is a constant drone of the stuff, it gets old very fast.

And before you go "Bah Humbug" me, I believe I have a point. Think about it. There are only so many Christmas songs/carols/holiday sea chanteys, right? And while this second pool gets bigger each year, there are only so many different artists who perform their version of the song. And clearly, the classics or more popular remakes/versions get the most play time, right? Doing the math, from the day after Thanksgiving (normally when the radio starts cranking it out) that is a full month of inevitable the same few songs over and over and over again. I don't care who you are, that is grounds for insanity.

However, I do have some favorites, but I do not want to hear even these more than maybe 12 times a year, thank you :)

Last Christmas, WHAM!Happy Christmas (War is Over), John LennonBaby it's Cold Outside, various duos perform it to my liking :)Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, same as above

There are perhaps more that I will add if the mood so strikes when I ultimately hear them, numerous times, in the coming weeks.

I don't like when people say "I like British Accents." They are not really saying what they mean.

Please, look at this Venn Diagram and tell me just what accent you like. I guess I will say if you generally like the accents of those who hail from Scotland, England, and Wales then you can say you like British accents because those countries are what make up Great Britain, or I guess you may go further and say you like the accents from all the above places as they are all the British Isles.... but I am guessing that is not what you mean.

I know this is kind of a rant, perhaps a bit frivolous, but it really bugs me for some reason. I hear celebs on talk shows (ahem.... celebs on Craig) say it all the time and it drives me nuts. Read a map, people.

///rant over :D

I like Scottish (obviously) and Northern Irish accents the best, methinks. How about you?

Sunday, November 27, 2011

I won tonight for NaNoWriMo, eclipsing the 50K mark around a quarter to midnight, a few days early. I am not done, of course, and there is a whole helluva lot of editing to happen, at some point. But, I am happy to have hit it. I was worried towards the start, but alas, put your mind to something you want and you will get there, even if it takes longer than you would like it to.

Also, I got an @reply from Chris Baty from NaNoWriMo last night on twitter, so talk about motivation! That was amazing :)

Thursday, November 17, 2011

My novel writing happenings have obviously been taking up my usual time for blogging this whole month. Sadness!

But -- I am finding that writing this year is much, much easier than last year, which is interesting because I was so in love with my story last time. I am still struggling to get to know my characters and have their whole selves come out in the book for it to make sense, and there some parts of the plot that I am still developing this time around. One would think this would make for a more difficult writing experience (as opposed to last Novemember where I knew exactly who was who, what was going to happen, and how it was going to end) but it is not. I can crank out about 2,000 to 5,000 words a sitting which just blows my mind. This helps because I have fallen behind a few times, but I am (w)right on track (haha, you see what I did there? ;D).

Monday, November 7, 2011

The location of my office cube is near by HR, who have a station set up for new employees and student workers to watch the Safety at Work and Sexual Harassment videos. And because sound does travel, and the cube walls do not reach the ceiling, I have probably heard these a dozen times if I've heard them once.

Their theme is something involving an office being like a jungle, which is probably the most accurate thing I have ever heard. There is one amazing clip where there is a poorly placed extension cord that someone trips over, body flying and flailing through the air. This 'office jungle' reference is of course a gigantic, extension cord-shaped boa constrictor. Both of which are found in excess in both jungle and office enviroments.

Blargh. Happy Monday.#NaNoWriMo word count -- 11,686. right on track. (I was worried because for the first 4 days or so I had a whopping 740 words done. I thought I was doomed, but I caught up this weekend. Let's hope I don't fall behind again!)